There is also still time to win a more grown up lunch box from Find Me A Gift. A rather sophisticated glass-look lunch box with a green trim, which holds within seperate compartments, a fork and a tub for dressing. This giveaway is running until the 4th of October 2011. You can find the details here.

Today we visited the weekly market in Girne. It was awash with sounds, colours and smells. I was agog as I walked around, agog at the variety and quality of the produce on offer. Wow! How I wish we had a market of this standard in Scotland. One near to me please. It would be fabulous and definitely change the way we shop.

One of the highlights for me was being given a sundried fig wrapped around a walnut. Oh my it was good. Sundried figs, purchased, boxed and ready to fly home with us, tick.

Here ends this month's Bookmarked Recipes and so October's Bookmarked Recipes is open for business. Just add your post to the linky at the bottom of this post. Please remember that bookmarked recipes must be suitable for vegetarians, in line with this blog.

Bookmarked Recipes October will be open until Saturday 29 October. I hope you enjoyed the roundup, I thought it great, as ever. Please join in next month and unearth some of those unloved bookmarked recipes.

You can find all the up-to-date foodie challenges, giveaways & competitions over at The Food Blog Diary where I am now ably assisted by the lovely Helen.

We are heading off to Cyprus to visit Graham's parents for a couple of weeks. I am, as we speak in the middle of packing hell. Trying to fit everything for the three of us into 2 smallish cases is not easy.

The last time we were in Cyprus, Cooper was only a baby and the flight was a breeze. He drank and slept a lot and was perfectly content. I just can't see that happening this time. I really can't see him being content sitting on our knees for five and a half hours five minutes. Eek! To get myself in the mood for our holiday and remember why the five and a half hours will really be worth it and can be got through, I am going to share some photos with you from last year.

This new cookbook is part of the Why I Love Organic Campaign. It features tips and recipes from celebrities and home cooks. Kate Humble, Raymond Blanc, Lorraine Pascale and Jody Scheckter are among the celebrities that feature.

The book sets out to show us just how easy it is to eat great tasting and natural food without all the nasties. It is divided into seasons and has a great seasonal fruit and vegetable chart, which is very useful for keeping an eye on what is coming into season.

I didn't think I was going to have time to try anything just yet, as I am about to head off to sunnier climes, but I have to make a lunch up for Cooper to take to his childminder's tomorrow, so I decided to try out the roast carrot hummus.

You can check out Cooper's filled lunchbox over at Little Tums and see some cute photos of him decorating his lunchbox. Innocent sent Cooper a shiny, red lunchbox to decorate as part of their 'Design a Lunchbox Challenge'. He had a wonderful time sticking on stickers.

September 18, 2011

A lovely carrot hummus. Such a gorgeous colour and very easy to eat and eat and eat......

Ingredients

350g organic carrots, washed, trimmed and cut into 2cm chunks

3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp olive oil

1 x 400g tin organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed

juice of 1 lemon

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 220c/Gas Mark 72. Place the carrots in a small roasting tin, add the garlic, cumin and 1 tbsp of the olive oil and toss to mix.3. Place the garlic under the carrots and roast for 15-20 minutes or until the carrots are tender and lightly charred.4. Add the chickpeas to the roasting tin ans stir well to coat them with the cooking juices.5. Remove and discard the skins from the garlic.6. Transfer the ingredients to a food processor, add the remaining oil and lemon juice, then use the pulse setting to blend to a creamy puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper.Serve: with vegetable crudites and oatcakes.

Details

Total time: 30 mins Yield:Serves 4-6

Cooper hasn't tried the hummus yet. All will be revealed tomorrow. Graham really enjoyed it and pronounced it so much better than standard hummus and me, well I just love hummus in all it's forms.

Disclosure Statement: I received this book free from the publisher to review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Way back in 2008 Fiona got in touch with me asking if I would like to review her new book The Frugal Cook. It sounded great and I was happy to oblige. It never did turn up and I forgot all about it.

Roll on three years and I am browsing through the shelves of my local library and I come across it. After a flick through I decided it was well worth a read. I still hadn't clicked at this point. It wasn't until I was doing an email search for the email conversation I had with Fiona that I discovered the email from 2008.

The Frugal Cook was relevant in 2008, but I would say it is a must-have book now we are moving to the end of 2011 and suffering from the current financial pickle. We all need to tighten our belts and think more carefully when shopping, including food shopping.

This isn't a vegetarian cookbook, but it does have enough recipes and ideas to be worth buying. Fiona gives us a thrifty tip with each recipe and advice on how to have a thrifty store cupboard and fridge along with ideas for leftovers as well as information on how to be energy efficient.

I loved this recipe as soon as I saw it and it has proved to be as good as it looks. I have made this several times now and we all love it. I have served it with rice, with couscous and with potato wedges and sour cream.

One night when my friend was coming to dinner I made it and spooned it over potato wedges, topped it with cheese sauce and grated cheddar and popped it back into the oven to brown. Mmmmmmmm, that was so good! Just perfect for a dull, dreich evening, served with salad and garlic bread. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

300 - 400g cooked chickpeas or a 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

a good handful of fresh spinach leaves

1 small carton of sour cream

salt, pepper & sugar to taste

Instructions

1. Peel two of the onions and cut each into 8 wedges. 2. Pour 4 tbsp of the oil into a large roasting tin. Add the onions, cubed sweet potatoes and peppers and mix well with the oil.3. Turn the oven to 200c/400f/Gas 6, put the tin in the oven and roast the vegetables for about 35 minutes, turning them half way through.4. Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop the other onion.5. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan and fry the onion until beginning to soften. Add the garlic and spice mix and stir well. Add the tinned tomatoes and their juice, breaking them up if necessary with a wooden spoon and cook for about 5 minutes.6. Stir in the stock then check the seasoning adding salt, pepper and sugar to taste. Stir in the chickpeas.7. When the vegetables in the oven have been cooking for 35 minutes, pour over the spice tomatoes and chickpeas and mix well.8. Turn the oven temperature down to 190c/375f/Gas 5 and cook for another 20-30 minutes until the vegetables are well cooked, turning them half way through.9. Just before the end of the cooking time wash the spinach, remove any tough stalks, slice the leaves finely and stir them into the bake. Return to the oven for 5 minutes.10. Serve with sour cream or a mild onion raita.

Thanks to to Fiona for giving me permission to post the recipe and of course for coming up with such a scrummy dish.

Fiona blogs over at The Frugal Cook, The Cheeselover, Wine Naturally and Food & Wine Finds. She is one busy lady, as well as writing 4 blogs, she has also authored and co-authored 23 cookbooks and is currently wine columnist for The Guardian and Guardian Green, contributing editor to the wine magazine Decanter and wine writer for Fork magazine. Well the list goes on, but you get the idea.

Disclosure Statement: I did not receive this book free from the publisher to review. I borrowed this book from the library and decided to review it. The opinions I have expressed are my own.